


rose and fell like the tide

by troiing



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-31 08:18:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3970693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troiing/pseuds/troiing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Helen moves the residents in secret, the Sanctuary's resident mermaid knows something's amiss.  After the explosion, Helen pays her a visit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rose and fell like the tide

**Author's Note:**

> "Sally's" real name, WaveSong, was borrowed from Angie (featherxquill). Expository on this is in chapter 2 of her fic "A Sexual Awakening in Five Acts." The way she portrayed communication with Sally was JUST how I hoped she'd do it, and I happily accept WaveSong as canon for her name! Obviously, Helen would prefer to think of the mermaid by her real name, even if it is unpronounceable...
> 
> Also, you should definitely read that fic.

The residents were moved at the last minute.

Only they had really known the details, and it had been quite the feat to manage, but it had happened: every abnormal under the care of the Old City Sanctuary, underground, in the temporary care of a few Hollow Earth connections and the more capable among the residents themselves. Nikola, Henry, Kate, and Will would all receive instructions in time. Everything had been carefully calculated, planned, calibrated in such a way that all would certainly fall into place in the end.

The only question was Helen herself.

“Sally,” as Will had dubbed her years ago - though Helen prefers to think of her as the best translation she can find for the feelings and images associated with her real name - had sensed this early on; it was a question that remained unasked and unanswered, but the Sanctuary’s mermaid knew far better. WaveSong typically kept her distance out of respect unless it was necessary, but as Helen began to leave after the last wave of residents were brought to the new Sanctuary, she had inserted herself swiftly and adeptly into the comfortable pathways of Helen’s mind with an image of Helen returning again.

Helen could only impart a feeling of uncertainty. Hope that wasn’t her own filled her, and she’d stood for a while, immersing herself in the emotion that was both solemn and warm, fluttering in her belly while it settled on her chest.

She had left with a debt of gratitude she did not know how to repay.

* * *

It’s not long after the explosion that she feels a stirring on the edge of her mind. It’s as familiar as it is frantic; WaveSong must be reaching for any mind she can touch. She has skirted the consciousness of Will, or Kate, or Henry, and has sensed danger and grief, though they lack the bond that allows her to communicate directly with them from such a distance. She can only glimpse shadows of emotion from them, and only if they show her.

Helen closes in on herself, shutting her telepathic friend out, and immediately feels a pang of guilt when the mermaid’s mind leaves the edges of hers. Despite this, she does not open herself up again.

She’s searching, but she won’t yet find.

* * *

The Sanctuary is alive with activity; it’s feeding time, and the abnormals are still settling in. She skirts the activity, though none of them have any context to make her presence shocking or out of place. Only Steve, the reptilian humanoid from the main lab, addresses her in passing.

“Rough day?”

Rough day. Helen laughs tiredly; he has no concept of what has occurred, and it imparts a modicum of relief. “You have no idea.”

She’s sure her ankle is swelling by the minute, she must have broken at least one rib, and she can’t turn her head for the pain from Caleb’s punch, but more than the comfort of a hot shower, several ice packs, and a solid eight hours of sleep, she wants to see WaveSong. The guilt of her abandonment won’t leave her, and she can’t bring herself to reach out now. She’ll see her in person, with apologies for the concern she has caused. No one else had carried the doubt; no one else had known. No one else had wondered if Helen would return.

Nikola, Henry, Will, Kate: they’ll all come in time. Soon, as planned. But WaveSong is here now.

She does not go to the lab that still mimics her father’s design, as the one in Old City had. Instead, she finds her way to another chamber, one with the steps that lead to the top of the mermaid’s tank. There’s glass here for viewing purposes too, but the room itself is infinitely more private.

Helen opens herself up at last, placing her hand against the glass and reaching out with her mind, summoning up the images and sounds that WaveSong associates with her own name.

A hesitant question brushes at the back of her mind, and it lasts a moment. She pictures the rear of the mermaid’s environment in answer, with its steps and the workstation nearby. _Come_ she thinks, placing WaveSong beside the glass in her imagining of the spot. Within moments, there’s a flash of light reflecting off of her scales as she swims beneath an arch in her habitat, tail catching the pillar in a rare moment of clumsiness.

For just a moment, her mind scratches at the surface of Helen’s, reaching out as if to determine that it really is her. And then, as she arrives at the glass that separates them, her mind rushes into Helen’s like a lover’s embrace.

The weight of WaveSong’s mind inside hers staggers her. She feels too much at once: joy and pain, relief and anger, a whirlwind of emotions that makes her balk, and WaveSong realizes her mistake immediately, withdrawing physically and emotionally with wide eyes and parted lips. She even draws her hand away from the glass. When Helen takes a deep breath, she inserts one small thought: _Sorry._ She doesn’t have to find a translation, though it is not a word native to her language of sight and sound. The other humanoids use it enough.

Helen feels another pang of guilt, her own guilt, at the withdrawal. She offers WaveSong a small smile, taking a deep breath to steady herself and bending her fingers just a little against the glass before flexing them out again; not a typical beckoning gesture, but one the mermaid understands. She approaches more slowly this time, splaying her narrow fingers opposite Helen’s and snaking a tendril of thought into Helen’s mind.

Fire. The Sanctuary ablaze. Grief. She has gleaned from the minds of the others what she could not find in Helen, and feared the worst. _How?_

Helen smiles tightly. “Long story,” she murmurs, and WaveSong cants her head. Helen shrugs one shoulder.

WaveSong frowns, and more images come. Helen in the rubble, a sense of grief and finality, and then Helen standing where she is now. Uncertainty accompanies both. _You didn’t know if you would live or die._

“No.”

WaveSong’s mind is a jumble of activity, like a jigsaw puzzle she’s trying to put together. It’s a feeling Helen understands, and she’s glad that she can only feel the buzz of activity going on in the mermaid’s thoughts while she contemplates quietly for a moment. A few moments later comes the image of a young mermaid hiding behind an outcropping of rock. Despite the innocence of the image, it comes with a sense of blame. _You hid from me,_ she says.

“I’m sorry,” Helen whispers.

There’s no one better to judge the sincerity behind her words, and WaveSong deflates a little at the grief that accompanies the apology. Helen feels her searching, quelling her own thoughts. _You’re hurt_ she offers after a pause, relenting as her gaze falls to the foot Helen is favoring.

“Nothing that won’t heal.”

Again, WaveSong seems confused, and Helen does her best to translate, sending images of broken things being repaired. She’s struggling though, exhausted, and WaveSong moves deep enough to look up at Helen from the other side of the glass. _You came to see me,_ she suggests, with the same image of Helen here, at the tank with her that she had used to ask if Helen would return. A little warmth and gratitude seep into Helen’s mind.

“Yes.”

Their mind-link bubbles with a sense of contentment. Not happiness, per se, but relief, and even an echo of joy. When she feels this, Helen knows she’s made the right decision in coming to see WaveSong before anything else.

They stay just like that for a while, Helen leaning her weight on one foot, WaveSong’s tail steadying her in the water with the occasional movement. Finally, with a question and an apology both behind the image, she breaks the silence between their minds with a picture of Bigfoot. Somehow, she has gleaned that his fate is uncertain; whether because he has not responded to her own calls or because someone has shared just enough information to make her question is unclear.

Helen bites her lip, and the overwhelming rush of grief makes WaveSong clench her fingers, placing her other hand against the glass too. It’s not his fate that makes the hurt so poignant, but how it happened: Helen had watched him walk into the arms of the enemy willingly for the sake of her cause, and he had paid the price. She grits her teeth, letting her nails bite hard into her palm.

WaveSong shares in the feeling for a brief span, not questioning, doubting, or blaming, but empathizing completely. But only for a brief moment: then the mermaid sheathes her own grief, throwing feelings of comfort and warmth into Helen’s mind with the same reckless abandon as before.

Tears spring to Helen’s eyes, and she leans bodily into the thick glass, pressing her forehead against its surface. WaveSong moves closer still, making a valiant effort at pressing her body into the wall, but the attempts are, of course, futile. _Come,_ she thinks after a moment. Helen gasps on the other side of the glass, immersing herself in the warmth rushing through her, but declining to reply. _Come,_ the mermaid issues more stubbornly, and Helen can feel water around her, hear the drone of ocean life below the waves.

“I can’t,” she says aloud, dropping a hand to gesture to her sprained ankle.

Although there’s sympathy in response, Helen Magnus can do many things, and WaveSong is unimpressed by the argument. There aren’t many steps to climb from here, after all: the floor outside this part of the tank is significantly raised, the bottom of WaveSong’s habitat well below Helen’s line of sight.

Helen tries again, this time with a lame excuse regarding her state of being. Images of pollution seeping off her own body into the mermaid’s pristine new environment. She _is_ covered in ash and bits of rubble, but when she pushes off the glass, WaveSong actually rolls her eyes at her - something she never would have expected from a mermaid. “Sally” has been around the younger individuals in her fold for far too long.

 _Come._ Emphatic, stubborn. Helen watches as the gleaming scales shift, then the powerful tail passes her line of sight. WaveSong emerges at the top of the tank with an unnecessary splash, and Helen caves to her.

Getting up the stairs poses a challenge despite WaveSong’s confidence. She makes every movement with care, struggling to keep weight off her foot, to avoid jostling, to keep her eyes straight ahead. She’s breathless by the time she gets to the top, clutching her side for the pain in her ribs. WaveSong is there, with her arms crossed over the rim of her tank, gazing pointedly at Helen with her seaweed hair plastered flat against her back, lips parted and gills closed tight to breathe above water. There’s a faint sense of ‘told you so’ somewhere in her thoughts, but mostly her focus is still on radiating love and comfort for Helen to feel. 

Helen sheds her jacket, giving WaveSong a long look before dropping down to the floor beside her tank. The mermaid reaches out, and Helen doesn’t fight when her blue, scaled hand twines with her own.

They sit there for a long while, Helen listening quietly to the quiet panting rhythm of WaveSong’s above-water breathing. Her species has lungs, but they aren’t very effective, by human standards. Helen has a few theories on this phenomenon, and she wonders sometimes whether time will prove the organs less or more effective. Are they remnants of a time when breathing above water was crucial, at times, or has something changed to make them necessary now? The species is so rare and private, researching the matter hasn’t yielded much fruit.

WaveSong eventually pats Helen’s hand lightly, drawing her out of her thoughts. _Come,_ WaveSong thinks again, but this time it’s a whisper in her mind, an invitation so gentle Helen shivers. 

After a moment of hesitation, Helen draws her hand from beneath WaveSong's, leaning stiffly forward to untie her boot laces. The uninjured foot first, then the other, wincing all the time. She can’t quite work it off on her own, and WaveSong awkwardly raises herself a little further out of the water, taking the boot in hand and wrestling it off awkwardly, all the time expressing mild disdain (disdain that has always humored Helen) that humans aren’t capable of protecting such a vital part of their body without the use of shoes. She gazes in shock at the discoloration when the boot is finally off, but Helen pulls her lips into a tight smile. "Cold salt water will be good for it," she assures, stuffing her socks inside the boots and standing. She inhales sharply when she lifts the shirt over her head, trying hard not to move her neck too much, and finishes undressing with the same careful movements while WaveSong seeks refuge below the water after the exertion of the wrestling match with Helen’s shoe.

Helen swings her legs carefully over the edge of the tank, balancing on the edge. The water’s just colder than what’s comfortable, but that’s never stopped her before; she perches there for a moment, naked as the day she was born, then slips with a small splash into the water.

She doesn’t fight it. Instead, while she still has some downward momentum, she empties her lungs halfway, using one small movement to push herself deeper. She regrets the exertion, but not the moment of thrumming quiet, so similar to that which WaveSong had instilled in her mind a short time ago. There’s silence in her head when the water presses in on her, a moment of thoughtless clarity; even her telepathic friend has vanished from her thoughts. But when she kicks her uninjured leg to rise to the surface, she feels the hands slide into place on her waist. She stops kicking; she rises to the surface wholly on WaveSong’s little effort. In a smooth motion, the mermaid slides her arms around Helen’s waist, leaning her cheek into her breast just beneath the water’s surface, cautious enough in her moments that she doesn’t cause Helen any more pain.

Helen trusts WaveSong implicitly; she rests, still and quiet in the water, looping one arm around to frame the mermaid’s and snaking her other hand up to cup her neck while WaveSong’s powerful tail does the work needed to keep Helen’s mouth and nose above-water, WaveSong’s hair occasionally tickling her chin where it floats on the surface.

Once they’re settled, WaveSong asks permission with another small tendril of thought to reenter Helen’s mind. Helen approves, and the sense of calm seeps in again. She sighs, body shuddering with the breath. “Thank you,” she whispers.

A wave of something she’s never felt before - not directly - enters her mind in response. It’s soft and warm, but unyielding in its own way. She recognizes it because she has felt it herself, though it is rare indeed that she confesses directly. Love, unfaltering and given without judgement. She swallows, and WaveSong shifts, settling against her again, responding to Helen’s reaction with a simple reaffirmation.

Helen exhales swiftly, looping a bit of WaveSong’s hair lightly around her fingers, then opens herself up, sending the feelings back in a softer echo of the mermaid’s. They float easily in that warmth for a long time before either breaks the silence.

 _When will the others come?_ WaveSong seems to ask. Pictures of Will and the others waver in Helen’s mind like a shadow.

She smiles a little in response, and although WaveSong isn’t watching her face, Helen knows she can feel the emotion behind it: a sudden coursing of relief, and perhaps even a hint of subdued mirth. “Soon.”

_Not now?_

“Everything in time.”


End file.
